Search

Last night I spent a couple of hours exploring my BATEMAN ancestors (I posted a photo of Henry BATEMAN last week), and I hadn’t really gone much further back than his parents William BATEMAN and Caroline JACKSON (my 3x great grandparents).

I did have an ulterior motive for investigating this ancestral line. I was looking at somewhere for a genealogy holiday next year! The BATEMANs were from Gloucestershire, William and Caroline lived in a place called Winchcombe (it was originally spelt without the ‘e’ on the end).

When I started Googling Winchcombe I soon realised that this was the ideal place for me to visit. Wikipedia told me that it sat on no less than six long distance footpaths, and that there was a heritage railway running through Winchcombe as well (I could ride around behind steam engines all week given half a chance). This sounded the perfect place for me already, but add on top of that a visit to the parish church to search for gravestones and visiting some ancestral homes, and I would be in my element.

What’s more my BATEMAN ancestors seem to have been playing ball last night, almost everything seemed to be working in my favour, they were pretty easy to find on the census (only one transcription error, BATAMAN not BATEMAN), they were easy to find in the GRO BMD Indexes and William and his siblings had their baptisms in the IGI.

Things went so well that I have not only added details for William and his siblings, but I also made a start on his parents (Thomas and Rebecca) from nearby Temple Guiting as well.

I need to check some other aspects, such as public transport and accommodation in the area, but expect to hear more about the BATEMANs in the next twelve months as I try and find out as much as possible in preparation for a holiday.